Will Millennials Turn to Capitalism or Socialism on Their Quest for Truth?

Authenticity without truth and humility means nothing. Millennials, especially Christian millennials, are looking for authentic leaders who will make a difference in the world. On a quest for truth, they want actions, not words.

"Don't count millennials out. Millennials are the hero generation. They are just biding their time and looking for someone that will stand up and say, let's go this way," Glenn said.

RELATED: Time to Pass the Baton to the Next Hero Generation: The Millennials 

No one understands this important block of voters more than Audrea Taylor. Formerly with TheBlaze, Audrea launched Because I Care to reach millennials across the U.S. The program has reached students on 40 college campuses, informing them about the importance of voting.

"We want to make a difference. And so we have to connect that to voting and help millennials understand that part of your civic responsibility and part of you making a difference, part of the way that you love and serve and care for your neighbor is in the voting booth and the way that you elect your leaders and who you elect to represent you and delegate that authority to," Taylor said.

Audrea joined Glenn on his radio program Tuesday to talk about the success of Because I Care and what millennials really want.

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these questions:

• Do millennials affiliate with a political party?

• What is the number one goal of millennials?

• What do millennials have in common with the generations that came up during the Great Depression and fought in World War II?

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN:  A good friend of the program.  And somebody who used to work for me and is now on their own doing a campaign, Because I care.  And it's BecauseICare.us.  Right?

AUDREA:  Correct.  Yeah.

GLENN:  And you have felt compelled for a long time to work with millennials.  At 17 years old, you were out doing all kinds of things.  And I think you're a rising superstar.  

Tell me -- tell me where millennials are right now.

AUDREA:  They're just apathetic to the political process.  They don't like the candidates.  They don't like the parties, even.  And so I think the concern is that a lot of them are going to stay home.  They're -- a lot of polling and studies are showing that millennials are less engaged than they were in 2012.

GLENN:  Which is the opposite of what the Democrats thought would happen, because of Barack Obama.  They thought they would develop this army of millennials who would come and march into battle with them, one after the other.

AUDREA:  Not the case.  Not the case.  So what they're discovering is that millennials are really fair game right now for anyone because they're -- they're seeing through the hypocrisy in both parties, and they're realizing, "Hey, I don't think I'm into this."  So what we're talking about, you might not like the candidate or the party, but we vote because we care about too many other things, in our community, in our nation, locally.  Our friends that are still looking for a job.  There's too many issues close to our heart that we care about.  And so we're talking to millennials on over 40 college campuses nationwide, and we're saying, "Let's vote because we care about too many other things."

GLENN:  So who does a millennial vote for?  As I watched the campaign -- I try to watch it as a millennial.  I try to watch it from four different perspectives.  And one of them is millennials.  And as I watched them, I realized this last election -- or, this last debate, that we all thought authenticity was the key word.  But it's not authenticity.  Because I believe that, in a way, Hillary Clinton is authentically who she is.  She's nobody.  She's -- she's hollow.

AUDREA:  Uh-huh.

GLENN:  And she is fake.  I think that's who she really is.  I bet you if you meet her in real life, much of what you see is who she is.

AUDREA:  Yeah.

GLENN:  Donald Trump is authentically like that.  I don't think there's a game or a face --

AUDREA:  He's himself.  Yeah.

GLENN:  He's himself.

AUDREA:  Yeah.  Yeah.

GLENN:  Okay?  

I think the word is transparent, that you would say, "This is who I am, flaws and all."

AUDREA:  Uh-huh.

GLENN:  Hillary won't say flaws.  Donald won't say flaws.

AUDREA:  Arrogance there.

GLENN:  And so we need truth.  Authenticity without truth is nothing.  Without humility, is nothing.  And as I'm watching these two, I think to myself.  They look to me like 1956.

AUDREA:  Uh-huh.

GLENN:  Millennials would have nothing to relate to with these two.  Nothing.

AUDREA:  Well, you said it.  It's truth.  Millennials are on a quest for truth.  They're trying to discover what truth is.  And so what we talk about a lot is that millennials to have discover that for themselves.  We've had a lack of education for us to even delve in and begin having those conversations.  But then we're also encouraging millennials, it's not just about these two candidates, although it represents the problems in the political system.

GLENN:  Yes.

AUDREA:  There's so many other races statewide and congressionally and locally, that millennials can have a huge impact on.  We're the largest voting bloc right now in history.  And so when we look at us sitting back and not, you know, participating, largest generation in US history.  And so millennials can have a massive impact, if we decide to do something with that power.

GLENN:  What is the response on campus?

AUDREA:  The response on campus has been good because they are -- they're encouraged that someone is not telling them who to vote for and that we're not telling them the answers and a party.  So the only voice that's been on campus is either a Republican group or a Democratic group.  And millennials are saying, "I'm not either one of those."  

And when we talk to them and say, "Look, we realize that we're not going to tell you who to vote for, you vote according to your conscience, but we're encouraging you to educate yourself and to care about these things.  And we realize that you don't like politics, I don't like politics, but we vote because too many other things are important."

GLENN:  So help me out on the churches.  I think the church has really done more damage to itself than Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker did.  Jimmy Swaggart did.  And because that one is about an individual.  This is about the institution.  Millennials -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- I hope I'm wrong.  Millennials -- at least the ones that I know -- you are a good example of it -- are, don't tell me about it.  I'm so sick of hearing about it.  Show me.

AUDREA:  Yeah.  Solutions.

GLENN:  Show me -- not just a solution.  Show me what you are doing.  I'll follow you if you are doing it and it's making a difference.  

But what's happened is, in my point of view, millennials have been going to church.  They've been listening to this.  And then they see, when the chips are down, you jettison all that and make an excuse and say, "Well, but it's different this time."  That's putting your faith in action, but in the wrong direction.  Which, if I'm a millennial, I'm sitting at church -- which, I don't want to go to on Sunday, and I go, "These people don't mean it anyway.  Why am I going there?"

AUDREA:  That's exactly right.  And it's because we're not consistent in our Biblical worldview.  So churches are picking a candidate that they like, for whatever reason --

GLENN:  Or, picking because they don't like the other one.

AUDREA:  Exactly.  But they're not consistent in explaining their Biblical worldview.  Because it's not consistent.  And they know it's not.  

And this is happening, not just nationally, but also locally.  We've seen this happen to churches locally too.  

So they need to talk about a Biblical worldview, all four years, right?  Not just every four years, every two years.  And talk about those Biblical principles and how they apply to the tough issues of our day.  When they do that, consistently, authentically, truthfully, you're right, millennials do understand it, and they want to be a part of it.  But the church hasn't done that.  And they've been hypocritical in the way they've approached elections for a long time.

GLENN:  And that is the thing that we don't -- we don't understand.  This generation is different than the proceeding four generations.

AUDREA:  Way different.  Uh-huh.

GLENN:  This is -- your generation is the hero generation.  That's the actual title.  It is the generation that is exactly like the generation that came up in the Great Depression and fought World War II.  

And so you're all about action.  You're all about togetherness.  It's why you can be swayed by a socialist message.

GLENN:  Uh-huh.

GLENN:  Because you want to do good.

AUDREA:  It's our number one goal in life.  

GLENN:  Right.  You want to do good.  You look at the world as a collective.

AUDREA:  Uh-huh.

GLENN:  And if somebody is saying those things to you, it immediately connects.

AUDREA:  Yes.

GLENN:  But if nobody is on the other side saying, "Yes, we can make a difference.  We can make things good, and we can make things better together, but we have to remember the individual, that you count."

AUDREA:  Yeah.

GLENN:  It goes awry.

AUDREA:  Absolutely.  

Millennials volunteer more than any other generation before us in the history.  We give to more charities than any other generation in history.  And we're young right now.  

So why is that?  You're right.  It's because we are the hero generation.  We want to make a difference.  And so we have to connect that to voting and help millennials understand that part of your civic responsibility and part of you making a difference, part of the way that you love and serve and care for your neighbor is -- is in the voting booth and the way that you elect your leaders and who you elect to represent you and delegate that authority to.

So it's absolutely right.  We are the hero generation.  That's what we want to be.

GLENN:  What is the number one -- if you listen to the parties, the number one thing that millennials want is free education.  Is that true?

AUDREA:  No.  I think it's a lack of education and really understanding -- millennials want everyone to have opportunity.  And they don't understand that the best thing to create opportunity is a free market system.  And it's not free handouts.  It's a system that is so prosperous that it allows for people to, you know, work their way through college and to do it themselves.  But I think for a long time, we haven't talked to millennials.  We've talked about them.  But we haven't really spoken to them.  And there's other people that have, and they've done it really well.

PAT:  Yeah, their teachers have talked to them.

AUDREA:  Yeah.

JEFFY:  Yeah.

PAT:  Their teachers have taught them that socialism is superior to capitalism.

AUDREA:  In Christian colleges.  In Christian universities.

GLENN:  Oh, I know.  

PAT:  Yes.  Yes.  

GLENN:  I've talked to people at Liberty, and I've talked to people at BYU.  

PAT:  How do we overcome that?  How do we overcome it?

GLENN:  I don't know.  I've talked to BYU and Liberty University.  And they both have said that, you know, there's -- it's tough to find a Biblical worldview person that believes in the American system of free markets.

PAT:  Yeah, they're having a tough time.

GLENN:  And get them to teach.  It's almost impossible.

AUDREA:  And there's two reasons.  The first is that they use secular textbooks that are written with communist and socialist messages.  Unbelievable.

PAT:  Right.

AUDREA:  And then they hire professors that have a really great credential but have never been trained in a Biblical worldview.  And they put them in the classroom, and they think that if they pray before class, it might magically translate into a Biblical worldview.  And we know that it doesn't.  You know, we see it.  We see it played out right now.

GLENN:  What an interesting thing to say, that if we put them in there and we just have them pray at the beginning, it will magically transform them.

AUDREA:  Maybe quote a Bible verse at the start too, you know.

GLENN:  Yeah, that will transform them.  

So are you registering people?

AUDREA:  Yeah, so what we're doing is we're working on 40 Christian college campuses across the country.  And we're realizing -- we all know this:  Twenty-five million Christians were registered in the last election, but they didn't vote.  And I'm not even talking presidential.  There are so many other important races.  

So we've created a really great system that helps millennials get to the polls.  We tell them where their polling place is.  We help them register.  Twenty-five states, you can still register.  

But a lot of these students have requested absentee ballots.  So this is a great tool, not only for college students, but also for Christians to share and make sure that people get to the polls.  

This is too important of an election for us to allow two candidates at the top of the ballot to define the rest of our decisions.

PAT:  Before we've educated them, do we want them to vote?  I mean, I have (laughter) about that frankly because, you know, like you said, they -- they tend towards socialism right now.  Because that's what they've been taught their whole lives in school.  So they --

GLENN:  I just have to echo -- I just have to echo Thomas Jefferson on trusting the people.  They'll get it wrong, but eventually they'll get it right.  We have to trust the people.

STU:  That's a different standard though than what I think many people do, which is, you know, rock the vote, or whatever.  It's like, rock the vote after you've thought about it for 15 seconds.

PAT:  Yeah.

STU:  If you thought about the issues for ten minutes in the past four years, then rock the vote.  If you haven't done that, don't rock the vote.  It's -- there's no shame --

GLENN:  Yeah, but what she's saying is that that's what their group does, is not rock the vote.

STU:  Exactly.  It's exactly what we need.  We need people -- because, I mean, we always -- we sit here and blindly encourage people to vote.  It's actually a terrible instinct.

PAT:  It is.

STU:  You should not be voting if you don't know about the issues or candidates.

AUDREA:  Yes.  And exactly what you said.  Rock the Vote does, you know, 100 campuses, right?  But they don't educate.  And so we've started with a smaller number.  We're on 40.  We're sponsoring educational events on these campuses.  And then we're feeding them a lot of messages that go in line with, what are these principles?  Why are the reasons that we should vote?  And really covering those.  Because, yeah, we want to get out the vote.

GLENN:  How can we help you get the word out?

AUDREA:  Have people go to BecauseICare.us and just check out what we're doing.  Share it with your kids, with your college students that are on a campus right now, or even with Christians maybe within the church that might think about voting but don't get out and actually do it because it's on top important for people's communities, for your local government, to sit this one out.

GLENN:  BecauseICare.us.  Remember that.  BecauseICare.us.  

I'm on my way to TCU this week.

AUDREA:  Awesome.

GLENN:  To spend an evening with the students out there, to hear where they're out at.  What should I expect?  I'm actually kind of -- I'm a little nervous.

AUDREA:  I think they're going to be really eager to have a conversation with you.  Millennials are eager to learn and learn from people that they --

GLENN:  I don't want to teach.  I want to learn from them.  I really want to learn -- and because I believe -- and I hope I'm not disappointed.  I believe millennials are more like you.

AUDREA:  They are.  They absolutely are.  They absolutely are.

GLENN:  Yeah.

AUDREA:  No, but I think you're going to have a good conversation with them, is what I'm saying.  You're going to learn from them.  They're going to learn from you.  I think you'll discover that they're not as pre-decided in their thought process as people think that our generation is.  They're really not.  They're searching for truth.

GLENN:  That's great.  Thank you so much.

AUDREA:  Thanks for having me.

GLENN:  God bless.  

Featured Image: Audrea Taylor featured Tuesday, October 18, 2016 on The Glenn Beck Program.

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.